


The Wisdom of Tulips

by archea2



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Post-Book: The Last Battle (Narnia), Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: Emeth comforts Lucy about Susan. (Takes place right after the end ofThe Last Battle.)
Relationships: Emeth/Lucy Pevensie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Little Black Dress Flash 2020





	The Wisdom of Tulips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/gifts).



> Dear Ashling, first I do apologize about the delay. I hadn't realized I had been so tardy, RL having got in the way as it tends to do on week-ends. But here's hoping this rarepair will find favour in your eyes! The Emeth scenes are my favorite part of _The Last Battle_ , and I rejoice to see the love is shared.

If you have ever known the warmth of returning, which you must have - home from school on a crisp winter’s eve, or from a mean word to a full-fledged hug - then you can picture for yourself what joy the Kings and Queen of Old had with their parents. And if Mr. Pevensie was a little surprised to find himself kissed on both cheeks by his eldest, or Mrs. Pevensie was still clasping her train ticket in a gloved hand, this only raised more laughter. Lucy, who had hugged them both with merry abandon, now stood by with a hum in her blood.

And then Mother asked, “Where’s Susan?” 

And a shadow fell on them that was unlike the shades in Aslan’s Country, that are only a cooler, greener deepening of its leafy greens. Lucy had thought that Aslan would wipe the heartbreak off their hearts; but now Peter had to cause it all over again, being the eldest, and Lucy turned her face away so that she would not have to see his as he did. He had had asked that they talk not of “it”, and “it” was there now, between the grass and the brilliant sun, and she knew that Mother at least would cry. She looked to Aslan, but he too stood aside, his massive head bowed under its own tawny crown. 

She began to walk along the ridge that wove a link between all the lands, making them part of Aslan’s Country. The stone smelled of sun, and the English herbs tangled at its feet kindled her memory of that first, longago summer at the Professor’s house - when he had recited their names to her as if the sound of them would seed a little of Narnia in the countryside. Now Lucy murmured them like a shield: dog rose and cat’s love, harebell and lady’s slipper, and the kingcup, and the wood-calamint that he had told her was even then dying out in England, now everywhere and bluest. 

But when she looked further up and further in, and found the black-eyed Susan vine still fountaining down the Professor’s fence, Lucy began to cry for good.

“O Lady,” a voice spoke at her side. “Lady whose smile held the sun in thrall, why so sad?”

It was Emeth, and Lucy did not exactly stop. But she gave a sorry sniff, and started searching herself for a handkerchief only to meet with a rub: Narnian clothes know not of pockets. Lucy’s best gown came with a little bag, suspended from her silver belt, only the bag appeared to have dropped, or melted away, while she was running.

“By your courtesy,” said Emeth, and he took out the piece of silk tied to the back of his helmet. For they do not do things in one country as they do in the next, and in Tehishbaan, his native place, a silk handkerchief is a token of rank, with their princes and kings holding one in their royal portraits as ours might a scepter. Lucy felt a little self-conscious at wiping her tears in this one. But Emeth was offering it so kindly that she did, and gave it back to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I know this is the time and place to rejoice, and I don’t want to be a spoilsport. But I have left a sister...” She paused, her mind shuffling between one word and another. “ _There_.”

“I have left six elder brothers,” said Emeth. 

He had said he was a seventh son. Lucy, another youngest, nodded with relief. He would understand.

“So they were _nice_ brothers?” 

“Yes. They were raised for the wars, and their backs filled with more strength than mine. But one cut a cane to make me a horse when the Tarkaan my father would not let me near his, and another found me - he always found me, Arash - after I wandered into the desert in my longing for Tash. I wept when he did, and swore I would not go home. So he waited with me. And when I fell asleep, he carried me back in his arms, Lady, yard after yard, until the sand gave in to the city gates.”

As he spoke, it was as if the story unfolded before Lucy’s eyes. She saw the boy who had broken into the desert with a cup filled with fireflies to light his way; and she thought she saw the brother who, like Susan, had shared his vigil in the night. 

“They were gentle,” said Emeth, gently, and Lucy saw where his tale had been headed from the first. “And because they are, they will remember me and know to find me.”

“But Susan no longer knows Narnia,” said Lucy, the burn pinching at her eyes. It was all right to cry before Emeth, she now felt; and the knowledge somehow made it possible not to cry. “All she knows is how to be beautiful and have fun.”

“And is that such a sin?” Emeth’s dark eyes were full of light, and she saw, to her surprise, that he could be merry too. He was an enthusiast; and now, with the enthusiast’s thrust of faith, he stretched out his hand. “Let me show you something, Lady.”

(All Lucy saw was the slender brown hand.)

“Here is the true Tehishbaan,” said he with such tender delight that she turned her gaze to where his was, and immediately felt the ring of countries spin. Once, Lucy had exulted in crying “For Narnia and the North!” - but that cry had been shut out, too. There is no North and no South if space plays ring-a-ring o’roses like a child as it did now, blossoming under her eyes into a city vibrant with life. It was flanked by the desert, but the desert was more like a tawny sea, one that borrowed something of a lion and reared itself to give the city its great walls of sandstone. Inside was more life, but she followed Emeth’s hand and saw that he was showing her a courtyard in which young girls knelt together on rugs and handed one another a stone that they rubbed with their fingers before putting them to their mouths. It left a red-rose sheen on their lips, and the old man painting a very small, very beautiful picture in the courtyard raised his hands in benevolent wonder at the sight.

“One of my sister-in-law raises horses,” said Emeth. “But another bakes the clay that makes a girl’s mouth like a tulip. At least that’s what one of our poets said, that my father likes to quote in our days of peace. Why should not a girl be a tulip and bring colour to the world, my lady? Look at Aslan, who is all gold. And look at you.”

Lucy, who had not looked at herself since she had pushed a béret down on her (unbrushed, to tell the truth) locks that morning and run out to meet with Jill, looked at Emeth. 

“The sight of you gave me peace,” said he, serious now, “before I knew whose peace it was.”

“And I liked you at first sight,” said she. It did not matter who spoke first of liking, not in this England. “I tried to talk to you - well, we all did, telling you to come with us - but you could not hear.”

“And did we not meet here in the end?”

“We did,” said Lucy. She looked over once again to Tehishbaan, the vibrant city, and thought of Susan. The lipstick had been the same red as the sheath of Peter’s great sword and her own cordial. Lucy had not seen that. Perhaps she had not seen all of Susan, really.

Impulsively, she turned to Emeth.

“Thank you,” she said with the old Lucy’s crinkly smile. “I think I should see to my people now. But I’d love to show you England - and Narnia, all of it - that is - if you’d show me more of Tehishbaan. If it’s not a bother. I think… I think I want to know your Calormene.”

“I shall wait here for you, Lady,” said he, and bowed to her again.

* * *

“Finally, Lu!” said Eustace. He was always the impatient one, a reason why it hadn’t taken him long to enter the Pevensie rite of instant diminutization when it came to names. (Yet he preferred for Jill to call him Scrubb. He suspected - rightly - that she might take him at his word, and go for Eu.) “Leg it a bit, will you? The Professor wants to give us all some tea. Where have you been?”

Lucy, watching Professor Kirk usher Mother in, said. “With Emeth.”

“Emeth?” said Jill, teasing, but not in a mean way. “ _I-liked-him_ Emeth? Then you’d better fetch him. Aunt Polly wants to ask him something or other about poetry. Says she has plenty of time to take up her writing, now her knuckles are A-1 again.”

“I say, Lu, are you all right?” asked Edmund as he sidled up to her with concern. By now the chainmail had entirely melted away on his and Peter’s robes. “Your face is frightfully red.”

“Tulip!” said Lucy, laughing, and ran all the way back to where Emeth stood.


End file.
